


just as a killed soldier believes he lives in paradise

by am_fae



Category: Ogniem i Mieczem | With Fire and Sword (1999), Trylogia | The Trilogy - Henryk Sienkiewicz
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Dubious Consent, F/M, Gay Character, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Multi, OT3, Past Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon, Power Imbalance, Unhealthy Relationships, happyish, me vs sienkiewicz on at 5, real historical inaccuracy hours, this exists now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 16:44:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20138698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/am_fae/pseuds/am_fae
Summary: Jeremi dies suddenly two years after Zbaraż. His former favorite relapses, and the voivode's young aide struggles to make sense of a future without the center of his world.





	just as a killed soldier believes he lives in paradise

**Author's Note:**

> Title from a translation of Regina Spektor's song Prayer of François Villon (Molitva)
> 
> I owe so much to sparklingdali and tuulikki/LucyLovecraft for keeping me motivated writing this niche fic. I love you all.

"Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart." (Proverbs 3:3)

_Near the gate a bloody sight struck the eyes of the soldiers. On stakes of the hurdle-fence were to be seen the severed heads of the five Cossacks, which gazed on the army marching past with the dead whites of their open eyes; and some distance beyond the gate, on a green mound struggled and quivered the ataman Sukhaya Ruká, sitting upright, impaled on a stake. The point had already passed through half his body; but long hours of dying were indicated yet for the unfortunate ataman, for he might quiver there till night before death would put him to rest. At that time he was not only living, but he turned his terrible eyes on the regiments as each one of them passed by, – eyes which said: "May God punish you, and your children, and your grandchildren to the tenth generation, for the blood, for the wounds, for the torments! God grant that you perish, you and your race; that every misfortune may strike you! God grant that you be continually dying, and that you may never be able either to die or to live!" And although he was a simple Cossack, – although he died not in purple nor cloth of gold but in a common blue coat, and not in the chamber of a castle but under the naked sky on a stake, – still that torment of his, that death circling above his head, clothed him with dignity, and put such a power into his look, such an ocean of hate into his eyes, that all understood well what he wanted to say, and the regiments rode past in silence. But he in the golden gleam of the midday towered above them, shining on the freshly smoothed stake like a torch._

_The prince rode by, not turning an eye; the priest Muchowiecki made the sign of the cross on the unfortunate man; and all had passed, when a youth from the hussar regiment, without asking anyone for permission, urged his horse to the mound, and putting a pistol to the ear of the victim, ended his torments with a shot. All trembled at such daring infraction of military rules, and knowing the rigor of the prince, they looked on the youth as lost; but the prince said nothing. Whether he pretended not to hear or was buried in thought, it is sufficient that he rode on in silence, and only in the evening did he order the young man to be called._

_The stripling stood before the face of his lord barely alive, and thought that the ground was opening under his feet. But the prince inquired, – _

_"What is your name?"_

_"Żeleński."_

_"You fired at the Cossack?"_

_"I did," groaned he, pale as a sheet._

_"Why did you do it?"_

_"Because I could not look at the torment."_

_"Oh, you will see so much of their deeds that at a sight like this pity will fly from you like an angel; but because on account of your pity you risked your life, the treasurer in Łubnie will pay you ten golden ducats, and I take you into my personal service."_

There had been reports from the peasants they’d captured of remnants of the shattered Cossack army around Beresteczko, haunting the site of their defeat and massacre like so many ghosts.

It would be dirty work, hunting them down, and the whole area still smelled sweetly of blood and rot. Bodies lay unburied on the field and in the marsh where Chmielnicki’s forces had fought, and barely a month after, despite the heavy August heat, grass had scarcely begun to grow over them. Surely the rebels wouldn’t be close to the battlefield itself, but…

Privately, Jan imagined he would find less _rebels_ than looters and wolves, one as starving and mad as the other. But Jurko Bohun had fought on the marshes of Beresteczko – fought brilliantly, desperately – and the jolt of fear Jan felt that he might now be found, wounded, reckless, in who knew what state _(Please, God, watch over him)_ – that he might never return to Helena’s steady embrace or Jan’s kisses, or _(please, God) _never hold their beautiful child – was enough to make Jan volunteer instantly to look into it.

_At least if he’s there, I’ll find a way to keep him safe._ He’d lied and told himself that he wouldn’t stray outside the bounds of his duty to do so.

It’s the third day away from the prince’s camp, and Jan’s men have found nothing but wolves and three emaciated men taking ammunition off the bodies (Jan remembers Jeremi’s standing orders and has them hanged on the nearest tree, swallowing his bile). A woman was glimpsed in the forest one night with rent clothes and empty hands, groaning about a dead child so that Jan’s blood ran cold, but she fled from his far-off orders to approach and he didn’t follow.

With the camp near the field, it’s hard to miss movement in their periphery. The men, quiet and weary as Jan himself, are cooking at a small fire, and Jan’s forced himself to eat as much as he can stomach despite the sickly death-scent in the air, when someone spots the lone rider approaching and they all stir.

“The prince’s colors!”

Jan raises his hand for silence, and the men settle, hands still on the hilts of sabres. As the soldier approaches, Jan can see the foam on the horse’s sides, the white-knuckled grip on the reins, the clothes smeared with the dust of the road. A familiar dread sinks into the pit of his stomach like a stone.

“Colonel Skrzetuski,” he hears.

The messenger’s eyes are as grave as Jan’s own, set in a face as young.

“Speak,” Jan says, suddenly anxious. He’s no stranger to bad news. _Is the baby alright? _was his first thought. The son had been so small still when Jan’d had to leave, his grasping little hands and soft head of dark hair so fragile. _He’s well, the little one? Halszka?_

The messenger removes his cap, already bowing his head. Standing in the ruined battlefield of Beresteczko as if it were the nave of the solemnest church, he tells of the sudden death of Jeremi Wiśniowiecki, voivode of Rus, magnate and hetman of the Commonwealth.

“The prince?” Jan says numbly. He feels dizzy all at once: it must be the heat.

The messenger nods, his mouth a grim line, and Jan staggers in a manner entirely unbefitting of his rank and office.

“Excuse me,” Jan chokes out, very graciously. “I think I may be sick.”

He crumples to his knees in the dirt in front of the man and vomits up the little he’d eaten. His head is pounding like a war drum, but he’s sure that somewhere in the distance he hears a bell toll.

_Jesus, they’d all said it must have been poison. What if – _

The prince’s aide Żeleński, turned nineteen last month, stands a little ways back from the dignities crowding the small antechamber. There doesn’t seem to be enough air. As Pan Skrzetuski sweeps into the room, it’s all he can do to stay on his feet.

_Surely they can’t imagine that I would ever –_

Then the hero of Zbaraż turns his gaze on Żeleński, who is quite sure that under the scrutiny of such an important personage he’ll faint on the spot, already weakened by some fatal combination of exhaustion and despair. Jan Skrzetuski is a tall man, and Żeleński barely reaches his shoulder, so he must necessarily look down, but – wonder of wonders! – his dark eyes are warm. Kind, even.

Żeleński takes a long breath.

“What do they call you?” Pan Skrzetuski says, gently enough.

“Żeleński,” he stutters.

Skrzetuski’s brow creases, and for a moment Żeleński’s terrified he’s angered him. Then, “I remember you now,” the colonel says, sure to smile so Żeleński cannot get the wrong idea. “The prince took you into his personal service, did he not?”

“He did, your grace.” _But I wouldn’t ever hurt him! I’d have died before he came to harm! _

_…That was my duty._

The smile remains, warmer than ever. Żeleński’s astonished to see a hint of a grin on Skrzetuski’s lips. “I was in your place not so long ago,” he says.

“You – you were, your grace?”

He has to stop himself from asking _how long ago. _

Of course, the hero of Zbaraż would be a man just like Pan Skrzetuski, the sort of tall, handsome youth they’d sing songs about – really very handsome, Żeleński had forgotten, fine-cut features and a certain elegance that commanded respect… but Żeleński’d been too caught up in his exalted position and the strands of grey in the dark hair to notice just how young he looked in the light.

“I was,” Skrzetuski says, the smile slipping a little. His warm eyes go strange and distant. Żeleński is struck by the sudden urge to apologize. “Żeleński, if you don’t have other plans, you are welcome to return with me to Skrzetuszewo after the funeral.” The words are so quick that between that and the shock it takes Żeleński a moment to parse them.

“Really?”

“Of course. And you were in the husaria before, weren’t you?”

Żeleński nods breathlessly. “I – I would be honored! Your grace.”

Skrzetuski really does grin at him then. _Just like the sunrise_, Żeleński finds himself thinking, horrified to realize his traitorous heart is beating faster. “I’ll let you think it over.” Breathlessly, Żeleński nods. “Excuse me,” his new hero says, addressing the room at large. “If you gentlemen don’t mind, I – I would beg another moment with the prince voivode.”

Polite murmurings resound in the quiet anteroom, and as the other officers file out Żeleński lingers in the carven doorway, watching Skrzetuski’s tall, lean frame disappear into the bedroom where Prince Wiśniowiecki’s body lies stinking on his fine sheets. Żeleński had been the one to close his eyes.

_The prince’s eyelids so strangely delicate under his fingertips. His flesh had long since gone cold, but Żeleński was used to the cool touch of the prince’s hands. In the August heat the body felt sickeningly warm. It was as if the prince – the _prince – _had been reduced to simply no more than another of his peasant victims. The corpses had littered the steppe, some half-burned, some rotting in the sun like fallen fruit. It was impossible that the prince should look like them, in his bedchamber in the finest house that could be gotten in Pawołocz, without any blood in sight._

_Żeleński hiccupped back a sob and forced himself to ignore the terrible stare in those eyes, the sharp eyes that had struck so much fear in Żeleński’s heart when the man who bore them was living._

He looks angry,_ he’d thought, irrationally, and whispered a prayer._

_“Forgive me –”_

_When the prince’s eyes were closed Żeleński thought to himself that he looked at peace. Satisfied, even, as he always had been when Żeleński pleased him._

Jeremi’s hand, kissed so many times, is cold under Jan’s fingers. Raven-black hair spills over his shoulders, edged with premature streaks of white.

His black eyes are closed. They were always so piercing, so commanding – before the world upended itself, people used to say the most trained ambassadors cowered under the scrutiny of those eyes. Jan grew up in Łubnie with the prince’s legend, and felt, rather than saw the truth of it: like heat radiating from a flame.

As for himself – well. He was always so confident, wasn’t he, until Jeremi Wiśniowiecki was looking at him, or worse, withholding any reaction at all, and gesturing for him to get on his knees. Jan’s own eyes, soft unless he tries to make them otherwise, sweep gently over that familiar form, dressed now in furs and jewels and brocade. A sudden sickness, but of course for a great man that seems poison. How much has Jan done and _felt_ and given up for the corpse lying before him? How much… enough that there isn’t much left to give, afterwards. Jeremi’s lovely fine-tuned instrument is just a hollow shell, a husk of something that used to merit consuming. When he’d heard the news, he wanted to scream out loud; now, staring at the body _(how could you have left me like this, in what possible world can you be gone and me left when I only existed_ _to serve you)_, there is simply nothing. He feels nothing but nothing is a feeling all by itself, a huge, empty cavity in his chest breaking through his ribcage, the same nothing that showed on Jeremi’s face when he articulated disapproval or not-enough and his expression simply, effortlessly withdrew itself and not a single trace of emotion slipped through and Jan felt heart and breath free-falling together inside him.

He stares at the pale hand beneath his own, fighting the urge to back away.

_I should pay my respects_, Jan thinks, numb, and kneels blindly beside the carven bed to pray for both their sins.

When Skrzetuski returns from the prince’s side, night has long since fallen and Żeleński keeps out of sight.

The look on the young husaria colonel’s face makes him shiver.

Skrzetuski is pale and drawn, his eyes fixed blankly ahead. The moonlight makes him a silver ghost, a young corpse in an open grave.

He sways a little as he walks, and Żeleński’s afraid for a moment that he’s going to faint. But to his credit, Skrzetuski doesn’t fall – even if it seems as if he, and not the prince, were the one who’d perished the day before. His back is straight, head high.

He looks like a man going to his execution, Żeleński thinks. He watches Skrzetuski until his silhouette disappears at the end of the hall.

The day they send the prince’s body on its way to Wiśniowiec, the whole army gathers at attention. It seems eerie to hold a funeral for the prince without burying him – a military funeral, the most the men can do for their commander.

A brave man, and a soldier.

_He’d been an avenging angel. A saint!_

The soldiers, gleaming in freshly-polished parade armor, either weep openly or stand as frozen as their lances, as if Jeremi’s spirit flies over them in the clouded skies and would look down disapprovingly.

Żeleński knows he shouldn’t weep, standing as he is at one corner of the husaria regiment, but he can’t seem to help it. Air won’t fill his lungs. He covers his mouth with his hand, trying to swallow his sobs. The prince is watching him, he knows it, those beautiful eyes flashing, dark hair blown by the breeze, looking like a picture in a stained-glass window in the strange post-storm light – an angel with a flaming sword – and Żeleński’s heart beats wildly, frantically, but he can’t make the tears stop.

Another boy from the regiment grabs his hand, crying as well, and Żeleński gulps, focusing on the words of the priest.

Father Muchowiecki pronounces the Dies Irae.

_The day of wrath, that day_

_will dissolve the world in ashes…_

Jan finds himself almost closest to the priest, nearer still than Lanckoroński and the hetman Potocki. As the crackling salute of the guns shatters the empty fog in his mind, he thinks vaguely that Gryzelda Wiśniowiecka would be standing where he’s been ushered, were she here.

The thought chills him. He glances out at the congregation of soldiers in parade uniform, searching for Michał’s familiar face.

He finds him, unsurprised to see no tears on his friend’s face and a stern, focused expression; still, the sight of him’s a comfort.

_That’s where I should be._

The ranks glitter in the August sun, crimson pennants raised. Jeremi’s men have been worn to the bone the past three years, but they manage a showing for their commander. Jan remembers the hetman’s men and the levy should be here too – that must be why there are so many. In the crowd it had seemed for a moment like the ghosts of everyone who’d marched out of Łubnie with the prince had risen again to honor him. The Cossacks said Jarema’s dead rose each night to take their place at the walls of Zbaraż, but Jan had seen enough brothers-in-arms buried to know the truth of it.

They died slowly, from lack of food and sleep. From the cold, in each little war of attrition. Those deaths were hardly the stuff of song and legend, but Jan had long known them to be the most noble kind. He’d longed for such martyrdom. Few enough had died in each skirmish, if all were accounted for: the prince is –

“Ingemisco, tamquam reus,” Muchowiecki continues. _I sigh, like the guilty one._

The hetman Potocki glances Jan’s way, murmuring to the magnate at his side, and Jan goes carefully still, like a prey animal hoping the hawk’s gaze sweeps past.

He finishes the thought: the prince was a smart commander, if ruthless. That much could be said for all the blood on their hands. Jan could say that much.

After a prayer he finds his eyes wander to the hetman, standing a few steps away in full regalia, and past him to the nameless, faceless ranks in file. They all blur together, the air shimmering with heat. Not for the first time, Jan finds himself wondering: _Do they all know?_

It doesn’t matter. It can’t matter, now. Jan doesn’t feel shame now, only distance. He might as well be watching his liegelord’s funeral from the edge of the formations. From a thousand miles away.

As they process into Pawołocz after sending off the escort bearing the body to Wiśniowiec and Princess Wiśniowiecka, Jan breaks away to go into the manor and gather his things. On the humble wooden crossbeam above the doors, the words are carved in thick block letters, clearly punctuated – a border szlachcic’s reminder of cultured propriety. “Tendit in ardua virtus.”

The same words had been engraved in Łubnie, on the stone arch Jan passed through to reach the prince’s chambers.

_Virtue strives for what is difficult_.

The journey to Skrzetuszewo seems to go by faster than Żeleński’d expected for an estate still secure from the far-reaching ravages of the rebellion – the _war, _Skrzetuski calls it. Grief made the days shorter. Żeleński kept busy to still his mind, fixing Jan’s armor and the harness of his horse, organizing the others in their small detachment, ensuring his own gear was spotless and sharpening the sabre he wore until the edge was truly finer than was ideal, at which point he’d hastily stopped.

When there was nothing to do Żeleński was seized by a fearful anxiety. He knew it was weakness, because as they rose and picketed on into the sleepy hills of the Rzeczpospolita there was no enemy to fear: none but silence and the horrible knowledge that the prince was dead, and Żeleński had failed him.

He’s sitting by their campfire one evening, vaguely aware of the dark eyes across from him, when Jan speaks.

“I’m sorry to make such a poor traveling companion,” he says, beautiful mouth curved up a bit at the corner.

Wordlessly, Żeleński shakes his head, too surprised for words.

“I’m sorry,” Skrzetuski repeats.

_It’s all wrong, that he should be the one apologizing – the hero of Zbaraż!_

“No,” Żeleński starts, but falters.

“The prince voivode’s death struck like a thunderbolt from clear sky,” Jan says. “But I find that the silence makes it worse.”

“Yes, your grace.”

With Jeremi as his superior officer, Żeleński would never have dared to continue the conversation. But Skrzetuski’s men are freer with their commander – as would be expected with a colonel. He continues, drawn on by an irrepressible hope. “Did your grace know him well? The prince?”

Jan shifts. Żeleński steals glances at him across the fire, but he can’t seem to meet the other man’s brown eyes.

“I served him for a long time,” Jan says quietly. “I must have been fourteen or so when I first came to Łubnie to train. No – twelve. It was the year the prince married.”

Żeleński aches with sudden envy. What he would have given to see Jeremi without the mantle of cares that had weighed down his shoulders ever since the rebellion started. Żeleński had only seen the prince from up close the day they had marched out of Łubnie and after: the man he’d worshipped before was a distant idol with sharp, bright eyes and gleaming armor.

The rebellion had changed Jeremi even as his legend grew. It had shortened his temper. Edged his hair with white.

Żeleński shivers.

It had been an honor to support such a great man in his hour of need, and yet…

The shining prince voivode and his shining bride, cut of the same steel. Jeremi did not speak of his wife with Żeleński. He remembered their parting, though, and private smiles at banquets – the prince’s smiles. Gryzelda Konstancja was not weak of heart like Żeleński was. She hadn’t cried a tear when the prince left her. _It must have been a beautiful wedding._

Had Wiśniowiecka wept at the news, as he had?

“True, it was twelve,” Jan repeats. He stirs the fire with a charred stick, shoulders hunched beneath his fur-lined kontusz. “That’s half my life in his service.”

_And I knew him but three years! Four, if you count the year before I – got his notice._

“I can’t imagine your grace’s loss,” Żeleński says fervently. He tries to wipe away the sudden wetness on his cheek with one sleeve. “You must have loved him dearly.”

Jan manages half a smile, lips colored coral by the warm light. Finally, Żeleński can meet his eyes – honest eyes, though the blankness there scares him. “I did, Żeleński.”

“I loved him too,” Żeleński says, a little desperate to set the words free. If anyone can understand, it’s surely the man across from him. “Is it wrong, does your grace think, that it seems impossible to go on now that – without him guiding us?”

Jan gets to his feet, tucking his kontusz closer about him. His silhouette in the dirt is long and slender, falling with each flicker of the campfire, and something that might be a smile or the beginning of a sob tugs at the corner of his mouth. “A great man once warned me against the sin of succumbing to despair.”

Żeleński doesn’t know how to interpret his tone. He quickly rises so as not to offend, and Jan lays a warm hand on his shoulder.

“You’ve done no wrong, Żeleński. Truly.”

“I’m sorry.” He’s sure he’s blushing, now, but he forces himself to look up at the colonel. “I would not have burdened your grace further, except –”

“You haven’t burdened me,” Jan lies. “Not at all. It’s late. Let’s get some rest before tomorrow.”

Rest doesn’t find Jan. Tossing and turning on his thin bedroll, he finds himself lying on his back, looking up at the darkness. The stars blink distantly overhead.

The boy’s soft, heartfelt words have called something out of the emptiness in his chest.

_You must have loved him dearly._

_I did._

So desperately. So many years.

He tries to fix his loves’ image in his mind, but the thought comes back: _What kind of foolish fantasy has it been, that I could escape him? Jurko said loving him was a fiction, but what if the real lie was that I could ever stop?_

The prince had been so rarely kind to him. It wasn’t his nature. He was more stern than soft, and Jan’d let himself be wounded by it. Yet – there had been times –

“What would I do without you?” Jeremi had said once, in one of his happier moods. The midday sun slanted gently over their bodies in the great bed from the open window, catching motes of dust and glowing in the light hairs on the arm that encircled Jan’s waist. The prince never opened the windows; it was late June, and Jan couldn’t remember ever being so happy.

His heart stutters at the memory, fluttering like it’s trying to escape.

Jan closes his eyes against the night sky, feeling his hands curl slowly into fists. The sting of nails digging into skin brings him back to the ground, and he inhales slowly to steady himself, to not think of –

_…The distant, comforting murmur of busy soldiers below in the Łubnie courtyard, spilling through the window with the sunlight. Jan sighs, suddenly so tired he could rest forever with his love’s warm shoulder pillowing his head. The words have filled him – filled the canopy bed, the high-ceilinged room, the sky outside – with a slow spreading sweetness like honey. He feels like a bird caught in a deadly storm, finally alighted on shelter._

_Jeremi’s thumb slides over his lips, slipping inside when Jan obediently opens his mouth._

_“My Jan,” he whispers._

Jan’s eyes fly open, heart racing. He sits up, burying his face in his hands.

There were a thousand harsh words for each tender one, and they all blur together. Jan’s pain was forgettable, a state so dull and constant that after a while he simply stopped noticing he hurt. It became simply a hollow ache in his chest that expanded when he breathed in and weighed more when he breathed out.

Punctuated by flights of brilliant, full-color joy.

The warm glint of the prince’s raven eyes, a visible proof that Jan had made him happy. The soft edges of a particular trusting smile, committed to memory in every minute detail; the sort Jan might get if he’d offered anything he could to help when the prince was exhausted by the strains of his position. Jan remembers the prince’s hand stroking his hair. Tracing his cheek with a clinical fingertip.

“I love you,” Jan had said, the first time they were together. He was shaking. The prince’s hands played over his skin, gentling him, and Jan’s body had curved towards his like a flower’s.

At first Jeremi’s kiss had startled him – the scratch of a grown man’s mustache so different from Michał’s soft, tentative pecks in the barracks dormitory, the way the prince drew back when Jan reached up to touch his hair and hummed approval when his hands returned to his sides. But he had already learned to seek its comfort.

Jan’s eyes were wide and hopeful, his face upturned, meeting the prince’s gaze.

“I love you.”

Twice, the prince had said it back. Once when Jan was seventeen. Once again six years ago.

There would never be a third time, another pleased smile.

At the first sight of Helena in the distance, a tall, blurred form in the doorframe of their house in Skrzetuszewo, Jan feels as if a great weight has been lifted off his chest. The torn-out, empty space remains, but at last, he can draw breath.

He needs to hold her close. To hear her heart beating, strong and steady and safe – to taste her sweet mouth and know once more the generosity of her touch.

Jan rides out ahead towards the gates, leaving quiet Żeleński behind in his wake, and dismounts in a hurry, offering his first real smile in days to the groom that comes up to take his horse.

Their son toddles down into the yard, away from his mother’s skirts. Swooping forward, Jan scoops him up in his arms and kisses him on the forehead, then on both cheeks and the tip of his little nose for good measure.

“Nie,” the child laughs, wriggling, “Tato, down, down!”

Straightening, Jan settles him in the crook of his arm, against his shoulder. He inhales deeply, head bent near the child’s soft dark curls, grounding himself with the thought of that small, dearest heart beating steadily so near his own. “In a minute,” he says, one hand braced to support the little boy’s back. “I missed you.”

“We missed you too, Janek.”

He looks up, and Helena is smiling at him with her night-warm eyes.

The moment they’re alone Helena reaches up and her lips are on his and something, something at last finally feels right in the world. Jan kisses her with fierce desperation, weak at the knees, and feels a rush at the little happy moan this provokes, his mouth opening under her own. It’s right that he should be hers, a blessing greater still that he should please her, and Jan’s mind is already going blissfully blank at their closeness as he tentatively reaches out to hold her to him – trembling at his own presumption, but he needs this –

Helena sets her firm, gentle hands on his shoulders and pushes him away. Jan’s a tall man, and a strong one, but their slight pressure – the sudden absence – makes him stagger. For a moment he can’t seem to see anything at all, let alone look her way and see coldness in the eyes he loves so much.

_I have to look at her. She’ll think I’m weak – that I have something to hide. I have to…_

Helena grabs his hand and he glances up. Oh God, he’s worried her. She cares, and he’s made her upset.

“Jan? Love?”

She strokes the back of his hand, interlocking their fingers.

“I heard the news.” Helena smiles a little bitterly. “No thanks to your letters.”

He feels like he’s drowning. _I should have written._ “I didn’t know what to say,” Jan manages.

The smile vanishes. “I know,” Helena says, herself the victim of loss after loss. She pulls him into a hug, her dark hair tickling his nose. “You have me,” she whispers. “I’m right here.”

“I love you.” Helena feels solid in his arms. Jan can feel her breathing through the embroidered wool of her bodice, warm and alive_. Safe, still safe_. Her gravity steadies him, at least for the moment. He buries his face in her shoulder, smelling the clear autumn sunlight on her skin. “I love you.”

Watching the colonel with his family had been a bittersweet thing. Skrzetuski obviously loved Pani Skrzetuska. Seeing them together, the tension slipping from Jan’s shoulders as her slender arms wound about him, the way they barely restrained their affection even before others… Żeleński’s always been of the opinion that love in noble marriages was something all too rarely sought, let alone found: yet no one who saw Skrzetuski and his wife could doubt that they possessed that treasure. It made him realize all over again how young the colonel was in years, and how weary. Given the tragedy that’d brought them together, he understood, but it still hurt a little to think that before this moment he hadn’t ever seen Jan truly happy.

(Żeleński remembers the stories of the couple’s cruel separation. The soldiers said that was when pretty Skrzetuski’s dark hair had grown gray at the temples, despite his age.)

_They’re lucky to be so happy together_, Żeleński thinks, chest aching with longing. _To have found such peace in each other’s arms._

Any Christian heart would be gladdened by the sight. But such happiness could never be his. For all his prayers, for all the knowledge that one day he must be called upon to take a bride of his own and father children (as a noble, let alone in the prince’s service, such a thing was almost inevitable), he’s never desired… what it would take to get there.

He’d heard the stories of Skrzetuski’s romance, and yet – and yet –

There was a particular way the prince spoke of him sometimes, a certain hint of _something_ in his smile, <strike>a </strike>specific tone of voice, that had allowed Żeleński to imagine – no, to hope – that Jan might be…

_Like me._

Żeleński tries to shake the thought.

_You really thought that man – the handsome hero of Zbaraż, whom the king himself blessed – could be… could want the things _you_ want?_

_No!_ He knows it’s wrong. Would never tar Jan Skrzetuski with the same brush, no matter how much his traitorous heart skipped a beat when he smiled. And better still, Żeleński knows the rightful fulfillment of such wants could only ever be in service: never because of the desire itself. _Of course not._

“Jan.”

“I can’t say it,” he says, the words spilling out. “I’ll offend you.”

“Hardly anything offends me these days,” Helena says. She takes his hand and raises it to her lips; Jan’s breath is stolen, unused to being treated so delicately.

“It felt like the whole world had fallen away,” he admits.

_“I would have done anything for him.” The admission had stumbled off his tongue so easily. Helena was looking at him: his wife, queen of his heart, the girl to whom he’d promised everything. Yet he choked on the sudden tightness in his throat, forcing what must come next. “He took me to bed. I’m sorry.” The words were too thin, too weak to contain what had been._

_“Janek,” she murmured, and he was afraid he might weep._

_This leave could only last so long, he’d thought, panicked. Jeremi’s summons had always made his heart stutter in his chest, but for the first time in years, he realized what he felt at the thought of another such request. It was fear._

_Helena’s eyes were as dark as the prince’s, yet they couldn’t be more different. She took his hand – mercy, Jan thought, gasping. How can she show me mercy for this?_

_“Tell me.”_

_It was a command, one for which Jan was impossibly grateful. He told her._

“I didn’t think of any of you. Not you, or Jurko, or the child. I could only think of how he had – had carved me away into the shape he wanted and – what purpose could I have, once my creator was gone?”

Said so bluntly, Jan can’t hide the weakness of it, no matter how quiet his voice gets. Shame wells up, threatening to overwhelm him.

He curses himself. It hasn’t been so bad in a year, at least.

_How does he still have this power, to make me feel the same way I did when I was with him just by disappearing? How much more will he take?_

He hadn’t wanted to trouble her.

_You disappoint me, my Jan._

_And you seem to think that should be my concern._

_In such times as these, private tears become a selfish luxury. Anyone who calls himself a man and wears a sabre will not yield to weeping over his own loss._

_I had not looked to find such contemptible weakness in you, Skrzetuski. How far does it go, I wonder?_

_Have you too joined the peace party?_

_I love you._

_Perfect. _

_Weak._

“– me?”

Jan starts. “What?”

“You went away again,” Helena says very gently, gripping his hand. “I said, do you love me?”

_“Yes.”_

“And Jurko?” Her dark eyes are playful.

His ragged breathing starts to steady. “God help me, yes.”

“I should think you have plenty to live for, then.” She leans in and kisses him on the lips, and Jan falls easily back against the pillows, letting her kiss him again. “Here. In the home we’ve made for ourselves.”

Jan finds himself blinking back tears.

“You’re more than what he thought of you,” Helena says with quiet firmness. “You’ve always been more.”

There’s steel in his wife’s voice. Jan’s wordless, but for the first time in a long while his aching heart is full.

“Halszka,” he whispers. Her dark hair falls like a curtain over her shoulder, blocking out the rest of the world as she smiles. “My sweet girl, how could I ever have deserved you?”

There’s something different in Helena’s night-sky eyes then, something vulnerable. She grabs his hand on the sheets. “Jan,” she says in almost the tone she used to say _Pan Skrzetuski, _“my beautiful, foolish husband, one day you’ll realize what a blessing you are to me.”

_She was lonely. _These sorts of creeping thoughts tend to speak with the prince’s voice. _Anyone could have_–

He grins up at her, tilting his chin back and hoping she’ll kiss him again. Holds her words close to his chest.

Helena obliges, kissing him deeply and sweetly, and Jan sighs to feel her fingertips catch in his close-cropped hair. She pulls away a little, watching him with her dark eyes narrowed. Jan moves to sit up, worried.

“I think I’d like to hear you say it,” Helena says. She blushes a little, but her voice is intent, clear. Honest.

Jan’s heart skips a beat. Eyes bright, he flips them over in a flurry of creamy linen, cradling her face reverently in his hands as they settle together.

“That I love you?” he smiles. “That I’d do anything for you?” He kisses her lightly, feeling her smile against his lips. “That you light up my world like the morning sun? That I’m yours?”

“I think I hear that last often enough already.”

“Because it’s true.”

“I want to hear –” her lips quirk upwards, making him wait – “that you’re a blessing to me.”

Jan blinks, and falters.

She reaches up, touching his lips with the pad of her thumb. “Say it for me, dear heart. I want to hear it.”

He swallows, a panicked, jerking motion. Helena watches him quietly, eyes wide and steady.

It feels like there’s a vise around his chest. He can’t not please her.

_Go on, _Jeremi says. _Lie if you must. Keep your word. What are you, if you can’t even do that?_

He couldn’t lie to her. Jan remembers the joy he’d felt riding back from Rozłogi that first time, the way he could hardly breathe for the happiness blooming inside him, how _right_ it had felt when their hands touched. He remembers the way Helena had raised her scared, lowered eyes and he’d seen love burning there, and pride.

When their son had been born and he’d climbed into this bed where Helena was nestled to hold the baby’s soft body cradled in his arms, and the child looked up miraculously with Helena’s dark eyes as his mother rested her head on her husband’s shoulder, Jan’d thought that this must be what it meant to be in heaven.

She’s so beautiful. Jan wonders if she can hear his heart, beating so loudly it pounds in his ears. He wonders if she truly knows how much braver she is.

“I…” He tries again, the words barely above a whisper. “I’m a blessing to you.”

Helena smiles slowly up at him, dark hair splayed on the pillows. She fits her hand to his cheek, the touch soft and tender. “Yes, love, you are.”

When a servant comes in with a muttered report of a Cossack troop spotted near the village, her eyes rather too bright, Helena reaches across the breakfast table and takes her husband by the arm, pulling him close a cursory second after the maid’s closed the door.

“Jurko?” The name is sweet on her lips.

Jan’s own heart beats faster. “I haven’t seen him since Beresteczko.” He’d written Helena in the aftermath, of how it had felt to see Bohun only from a distance, that beloved form a far-off, desperate wraith across the lines of battle. That had been at the height of summer; autumn leaves hung on the branches of the trees now, stirred by any sudden burst of wind. “It could be.”

“And you’re sure he survived?”

Jan nods. “I’m sure.”

_The battle, at least._ He refuses to acknowledge the jolt of fear the question inspires, to consider the endless misfortunes that could have come upon him between then and now. It’s a familiar exercise, but still one he’s unused to. Once he’d asked Helena how she managed, and she shrugged. _I worry about _you, she’d said, avoiding his eyes. _Bohun… this is how it has to be, with him, all this coming and going. I pray and trust he’s safe. Death wouldn’t take him, not yet._ Privately Jan agrees, though the memory of believing they both were gone still lingers like a shadow. Death wouldn’t dare.

She kisses his cheek, withdrawing with a small smile. “It’s him. For the winter.” Jan doesn’t question her quiet, bedrock certainty. “Go and bring him back to me. Make sure he’s safe.”

Jan grins and calls for Żeleński.

The boy is quiet as they set off in the yard, mounting up little ways from Jan’s side before the rest of the small escort – picked men and house Cossacks. Not for the first time, Jan finds himself worrying about him. Żeleński’d looked so scared when they met. Jan had hardly been in any state to notice, but he’d obviously been devoted to the pri – to Wiśniowiecki. Obviously…

The boy’s oval-shaped face is eerily familiar. He’s sure Żeleński’d already been Jeremi’s aide before his own marriage and the leave that followed, but he can’t seem to recall when they’d met or how often. During the war, he’d barely managed to go through the motions of life – and before that, Żeleński would’ve been beneath his notice.

Still, he’s certain the green eyes had been brighter then.

Not for the first time, Jan feels a chill set about his heart.

_I was worth little, but this boy…_

He shakes off the thought. Tells himself there’s nothing behind it.

“Stay close,” he tells him. “We’ll sweep the area and see what we find; my wife and I have reason to expect visitors.”

_That’s one way to put it._

“Sir? Your grace?” Żeleński closes the distance between them, taking care to lower his voice in front of the rest. “Are you sure the peasants weren’t – not lying, but exaggerating, maybe? A troop this far west, and right before winter…”

It’s something of an imposition, but Jan has to fight back a smile: the boy’s right. “All the same, it’s our job to determine the truth of the matter.”

“Right – of course.” Żeleński shifts. He drops his eyes, and when Jan’s sure that he’s heard the end of the matter (Żeleński’s almost unusually diffident) he hears: “I wouldn’t presume to tell your grace not to make certain your home is safe. Not after… I mean to say, in the prince’s army we all wept for your misfortune, sir.”

Jan glances back towards the other men, by whose stolid expressions one might think they’d heard nothing of the little speech whatsoever.

“Thank you, Żeleński,” he says. There’s no need to feign the warmth in his voice. Jan’s never enjoyed the attention he’d gotten in his grief, but the young man’s devotion touches him. “But as I said, I have reason to believe there may be something to these reports.” He smiles. “We’ll assess the situation and see if we find who I’m looking for.”

The sun hangs low in the sky and Jan’s riding ahead when he hears the sound of dry leaves rustling and draws up on the narrow road, raising his hand to signal the others behind him.

_Probably a peasant returning from town. _But his heart sings.

Pulse thudding, he tries to proceed more slowly, a nod to wartime caution more than out of any real concern: watching the shadows between the narrow trees at the roadside, clusters of slim birch. The worn path twists and turns to accommodate the leafy gully of a dry riverbed, and soon he’s alone with the birdsong and the young forest. A flurry of dark-winged birds startles somewhere up ahead, and Jan’s eyes follow the motion into the distance.

The sound grows abruptly louder, thudding, galloping steps, and Jan whirls to see the ragged blue caftans of the former Czehryń regiment surround him, dust kicked up by their horses’ hooves.

For a moment his dizzied eyes search wildly for the face he seeks. Motion, dark hair there and there, the curve of a delicate jaw there –

Bohun reins in his horse beside him, facing opposite, so close Jan can nearly feel his warmth.

_God, I’ve missed this – I’ve missed him – _

“Laszku,” he says, and kisses Jan on the lips.

Żeleński curses himself for letting the colonel get so far out of his sight in the turns of the country path. He urges his horse into a trot, the others following.

The troop of Cossacks he’d been so convinced could not exist is mounted up on the road, and Żeleński’s head spins.

Cossacks? Unregistered, likely – and all bearing curved sabres, by the looks of it – so few in this part of the country so close to winter, and not even avoiding the roads?

_As if they were guaranteed safe passage_.

There’s something here he doesn’t understand, and it scares him.

_Where’s Skrzetuski?_

He wonders if he should even go further – have they seen him, yet? –

“It’s safe, lad,” mutters one of the men, drawn up beside him now; a grizzled old soldier with a strange look in his eyes.

Żeleński looks back at the scene ahead of him, uncomprehending, and at last sees Skrzetuski – one arm wrapped around what must be the Cossack ataman, as close as brothers. Exchanging words excitedly, their heads leaning together.

They advance in an unhurried blur.

The Cossacks are a ragged group, clothes torn and badly mended beneath stolen jewelry and the odd fur-lined kontusz, some in blue that might once have been someone’s colors. One of the younger men, a dark-haired boy in blue, catches Żeleński looking at him and dares to smile, and Żeleński tears his eyes away, back towards –

He sees blue-green eyes glance his way and his heart stutters.

The Cossack with his hand on Skrzetuski’s cheek must be a god; he must be a hero. Żeleński’s never seen eyes that burn with such a clear, blue-hot flame, has never seen a girl with a more beautiful smile, even if it cuts like a sabre’s edge. He’s never –

_Only in service, _he hears a cold voice. _Remove distractions from your duty._

_I thought better of you. I will disallow it, if you can’t._

He swallows, and the implications of the scene fall on him like a crashing wave.

“Your grace,” he tries to call, and it suddenly seems wrong that he should call his commanding officer by that szlachcic’s title.

Skrzetuski doesn’t seem to catch the words, but he turns towards him all the same, joy plain on his dark, handsome face. “Żeleński, Jurko Bohun, a Cossack ataman of the Czehryń regiment.”

_God in Heaven._

Czehryń – Chyhyryn – is far into the lands controlled by the rebellion, had been lost in the first year of the war: but everyone knew _Bohun_, and the harm he’d wrought the man whose waist his arm still encircles.

_They’re all the same at the core, _the prince had shrugged. _The lawlessness, the hunger. There’s little that separates such men from the beasts that must be yoked to plow their fields. _

The Cossack mutters something Żeleński doesn’t hear, and Jan shoves at him as playfully as a long-lost friend, as a coquettish mistress.

He turns back to Żeleński. “He’ll join us as we return.”

_It falls to us to distinguish ourselves. _The prince had been insistent on this point, the cold words ringing out and resounding._ It’s the distinction of self-control, of righteousness, that gilds our noble blood. Without it we mean nothing. _His lip curled. _Less than nothing, for the dishonor of it. _Żeleński had blushed to remember his own lapses, the pistol shot that sent him into Jeremi’s service. The friends he’d wanted to kiss.

Żeleński simply stares, his heart beating loudly in his ears.

Dear God, what has he done to commit his life and fortune to such a man? How stupidly naïve has he been?

He dismounts, his shaking hands barely managing to cling to the tack of the horse Jan’d provided him. After a brief altercation between the Cossack and the colonel, the Czehryń men are allowed to settle near the road to take advantage of the momentary reprieve, food and wineskins materializing, and Skrzetuski’s retainers join them, if at a distance.

It’s all wrong. Żeleński can’t breathe.

“Are you well?”

Skrzetuski’s voice. Żeleński hastily gets to his feet, turning to face him, all rigid ice. He’d walked away from the camp hoping the world might try to make sense again, and now Jan dares to sound concerned, and Żeleński feels a pang in his chest at how much the colonel’s casual warmth had meant to him.

_And now – what can it be worth?_

“You were the prince’s officer,” Żeleński says, staring at him. The Cossack is standing at Jan’s shoulder, as close as a consort, his eyes cutting back towards them.

Skrzetuski goes still and Żeleński is suddenly furious, unable to restrain the words that rise in his throat –

“Jeremi held you in high esteem!”

It’s louder than he meant it to be, almost a shout in the woodland stillness, and since the prince’s service Żeleński usually balks at raising his voice but this feels _good,_ it feels _right –_

_I trusted you – _

Skrzetuski’s voice is steady. There’s something Żeleński doesn’t recognize in his expression. “I pray every day you never knew Jeremi as well as I did.”

What in God’s name is that supposed to mean?

“You spoke at his funeral,” Żeleński says, feeling his throat get tight. “You threw flowers on his coffin!”

_I know you cried at his deathbed!_ he wants to scream, heartbroken._ You cried like I cried! I saw you, sobbing like you were his widow, not a man and a soldier!_

And he hears the prince’s cold voice:

_Weak._

Żeleński’s soul listens like a bell struck pure and true.

_Maybe he was always weak,_ he thinks, viciously._ Maybe that’s why the Cossack’s pretty eyes could tempt him from his duty._

Skrzetuski is very pale, but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t even drop his gaze. “Żeleński, don’t imagine for a moment that the prince meant nothing to me.” The granite in his warm, honest eyes makes Żeleński’s weak heart quail a moment. “When we buried the prince a part of me died.”

He gathers himself again, glaring up at the hero of Zbaraz.

_How dare he?_

“The better part, it would seem!”

Jan does stagger then, taking a shallow step back, and it cuts Żeleński to the quick to see the Cossack’s rough hand rise to his crimson-clad shoulder, supporting him, telling him quiet and open how he’d catch him if he were to fall.

Skrzetuski glances over at him so they’re turned together, and the soft, fond tilt to his proud jaw as he does sends a pang through Żeleński’s chest as sure as if he’d been stabbed. God help him, staring at Bohun’s hand on the red wool, he can’t even find the words to tell Skrzetuski how sickening the sight is. _God help me –_

Skrzetuski’s voice calls him back:

“Do you really believe the prince’s service made you a better man?”

The Cossack isn’t touching him now, and somehow that hurts more –

“What else could it have done?” Żeleński spits. The ground is falling away beneath his feet.

He sees Skrzetuski take a breath.

“It was not so for me.”

The words are quiet, but damn him, his voice is still steady.

Żeleński wants to laugh. He wants to scream. “Do you mean you were too weak? You were too proud to remember your place? Jeremi – the prince would never ask for something he didn’t need. He would never do something that ill befit his position. He was just and brave and selfless and he died like – like Christ, and you dishonor his memory out of what? Selfishness? What crime – what wrong did he do you? Being stronger of soul than most men and more righteous?” He gasps for air. “You must have been glad when he died. He was the country’s greatest hope – the best – the greatest man who ever lived! Were you laughing while we wept? What kind of Judas are you, to send him to heaven with your false kiss? Traitor! Traitor! Thrice traitor!”

His eyes are burning so that he barely sees it when the Cossack surges forward, death in his blue-green eyes.

For a frozen moment Żeleński thinks he’d be proud to pay with his blood for the rash, true words. Then Skrzetuski reaches out to Bohun as if to hold him back – and without even a touch, the storm dies.

Żeleński lifts his chin, meeting the fury in the Cossack’s gaze, but Skrzetuski’s silence makes his breath catch, squeezing the still air from his lungs.

“Żeleński,” he says.

_He’s not angry,_ Żeleński thinks, too shocked to process it.

“Sir –!”

“I won’t discuss this here,” Skrzetuski says firmly. “And I will not suffer a man in my service, one I trust, to threaten an honorable fighter who’s been a guest under my roof.”

Żeleński is about to tell his commanding officer where he can put his precious service, but for some reason the words won’t come.

“Think on what I’ve said.” Skrzetuski suddenly sounds exhausted, as if he were twenty years older. “That’s all I ask.”

He’d been prepared for anger – for the prince’s dizzying wrath –

The tightness in his chest vanishes, cut away by the thin, bright voice that tumbles out:

“Jeremi always said you knew your duty!”

When the prince had been alive, Żeleński had never once even dared to dream of calling him by his first name.

Jan Skrzetuski, hero of Zbaraż, blessed by the king himself, _flinches_.

“You’ve said enough.” Ty skazav dostatn’o!

The Cossack’s voice startles him, paralyzed as he is by Skrzetuski’s fear. Later, Żeleński will wonder if it was cowardice – some shameful lack of that inherent nobility that should characterize all szlachta – that had him fleeing before one Cossack ataman’s words and the death plain in that Cossack’s dark face and the white-knuckled fist around the whip at his belt. He will even wonder that night, remembering, what the prince would say if he knew he’d been so easily defeated. Yet in the moment, heart in his throat, transfixed by the stunned look in Skrzetuski’s eyes, there is nothing else that can be done.

He flees, but like a criminal at the scene of his crime _(what crime? Reprimanding a soldier for being remiss?)_ he does not go far.

_You did well, Żeleński, _Wiśniowiecki would say. _I did not sacrifice everything I had to our Commonwealth to see it spat upon by whores too weak-hearted to stomach the divine summons to vengeance and to honor._

Żeleński sinks back against rough tree bark, closing his eyes. He feels sick.

_The betrayal of those close to us is always the hardest,_ Jeremi’d told him, thin mouth twisting bitterly. In his mouth, with the gold-threaded wings of angels spread on the tapestry behind him, ‘us’ sounded like a royal ‘We’. Żeleński had blushed, knowing the comment was a rebuke. He’d started his service to the prince in life-debt for a breach of military discipline, and every day since, every hour, his debt had grown. So had his gratitude. His admiration.

Everyone said Jan Skrzetuski’d been the prince’s favorite. The prince himself had said…

Arms wrapped around his stomach, Żeleński catches the men’s close voices, uncharacteristically soft. He opens his eyes.

Tall, proud Skrzetuski slumps into Bohun’s arms like a willow bough. His forehead rests on the Cossack’s shoulder; Bohun’s arms first settle around his waist then hold him close in a grip that would look crushing if Jan didn’t _sigh _so.

Flushing, Żeleński looks away. He doesn’t think they’d notice him even if he were several feet closer, but it still feels as though he’s seeing something he shouldn’t.

Finally:

“That’s how it is with you lachy, then?”

A choked noise that could be a laugh or a sob. “Yes, it is.”

“I could have killed him,” the Cossack growls, followed by something in Ruthenian Żeleński can’t quite make out from where he stands, tense as a wire and poised to flee. “You just have to say the word, my dove, and it’s done.”

More of a laugh this time, even if it’s ragged. “Please don’t.”

“The next lordling who dares to speak to you will get a taste of Cossack steel,” Bohun promises, voice dark.

“Just speaks? On any subject?”

“Yes.”

“Perfect.” Żeleński can hear Jan’s smile. “This will do wonders for morale.”

A pause, and the rustle of fabric.

“I still hear his voice in my head,” Skrzetuski says, very, very quietly, and Żeleński knows suddenly he doesn’t mean _him_. “I never expected to hear someone else say the words.”

Bohun pulls him closer still, his ringed hands clutching at Skrzetuski’s kontusz, and Żeleński makes out another soft sigh. “You’re the bravest man I’ve ever known.”

How did Bohun say such things so easily?

Once, the prince had thrown the goblet he was drinking from at the wall next to Żeleński’s head. It shattered on the plaster into a thousand shards of amber-tinted glass. The burgundy dregs of wine splashed onto the eggshell-colored plaster, onto the floor. Żeleński thought his heart had stopped working before it abruptly beat faster than ever, like a frantic pair of wings. He stood like an idiot, not knowing where to move or what to do.

Standing beside the great carved desk their hosts had lent him, the prince had run his thin hands through his loose dark hair, gathering himself. Żeleński had understood with a great rush of relief that it was over and the prince regretted his hasty action, and that now that things were normal it was Żeleński’s job as aide – since it was obviously too late in the night and too embarrassing to fetch a servant – to get to his knees and gather the shards in a spare cloth and hope the crystal didn’t cut his fingers.

Jeremi had looked almost uncertain for a moment, as if he’d wanted to apologize. Instead he sank back into the carved chair with a sigh that let Żeleński know the momentary frustration had passed, though he was bitter and exhausted and would undoubtedly welcome what comfort the boy could offer. Żeleński felt so grateful for that sigh that he could have wept. The prince didn’t need to regret what he had done or tell Żeleński he was safe, not when it was he who’d interrupted his thoughts and provoked such an outburst. He was a great man and it was an honor to serve him, and no – no surprise, that he was strained, with the weight of the whole world on his shoulders.

Żeleński blinked back his tears, startled by a smear of blood on the glass in his hand. A piece of the cup had sliced a shallow line across his palm.

Bohun had stepped in front of Skrzetuski, shielding him with his body. The thought bewilders him: no one had ever defended against the prince’s words before.

They make quicker time on the road back to Skrzetuszewo, once Jan steadies himself. Bohun is clearly desperate to see Halszka: Jan keeps catching him in these fleeting, _young _smiles, interspersed with the sort of expectant, focused tension Jan knows too well. His horse is as anxious for home as he is, and it warms Jan to see it; he’s itching to kiss him again.

The Żeleński boy lingers towards the back of the group, with a few of Jan’s men casting sympathetic glances his way, and it chills Jan just to think of him.

“I have to talk with him,” Jan says quietly.

Bohun huffs and shakes his head, dark hair falling into his eyes. “Forget him. You don’t owe any of them.”

Jan bites back the response of _You wouldn’t understand,_ true as it might be.

_Jeremi always said you knew your duty._

He swallows. _Jezus, Maria._

“You don’t,” Bohun says, more forcefully. He glares at a tuft of grass in the dirt of the yard, avoiding Jan’s gaze.

Jan takes his arm, thinking he knows what this is about, and Bohun turns towards him, dark brows drawn. He always startles into a blacker mood; Jan can’t help but smile at the familiar gesture. “I’m not ashamed of you.”

He whispers it close to Jurko’s ear, but the words come out loud enough that they both blush. Jan grins at him, knowing full well Bohun will want to test that promise later.

Bohun lifts his hand to Jan’s jaw, tipping his head down to meet his eyes.

“The kid reminds me of Rzędzian. How do you know he won’t stab you the moment you turn your back?”

He can’t help but laugh. “Really?”

“You can never know with these people,” Bohun says, nearly choking on bitterness. Jan feels a thrill of guilt, of fear; he lets it pass.

Jan and Helena and their baby son have become included in Bohun’s idea of his own, and Jan knows that pits the rest of the lachy against the four of them, the way Bohun thinks of it. He’s not ready to tell Jurko that sometimes he sees the same thing.

“He’s not a Rzędzian, _atamanie_,” Jan says, determined to tease him only very lightly; but then it has to be said: “To speak truly, he reminds me of myself.” He draws in a shaky breath. “At that age.”

Bohun glances sharply at him, and a moment later Jan feels a callused hand clasp his.

He squeezes Bohun’s hand, achingly grateful for the touch. “I’ll see if I can speak with him.”

Jurko’s gaze slides away from his, and Jan follows his eyes to Helena on the portico, aglow like a filament in her pale skirts. Her hair’s slipping loose from her braid, fur hood fallen back around her shoulders, a vision of wild beauty in the settling autumn mist, and Jan smiles up at her on instinct, darting close a moment to kiss Bohun’s cheek before he lets him go. Bohun moves towards her like a man in a dream.

Żeleński’s so lost in thought that he barely notices the Cossack watching him as he unsaddles his horse the stables, until their hands brush as he reaches for the lead line.

“You’re doing that yourself, lord?”

It’s the boy from before, in the blue caftan. Żeleński feels his face get hot, wills his shoulders not to hunch the way he knows they are.

_Have some respect for your station,_ the prince would have scoffed.

“I was a squire most of my life,” he says as primly as he can, though he knows he has no obligation to answer. His heart still beats irregularly from the afternoon’s confrontation. He’d thought tending to his horse would calm him, and it was a habit from long months on the march.

“Oh, a squire, is it?” The young man beams at him. His Polish is the cobbled-together version heard so often on the Ukrainian steppe and so rarely within Jeremi’s earshot, but he pronounces the word with special attention, mimicking him.

Żeleński nods abruptly, ears warm. He turns back to his work, his head bent to avoid the Cossack’s gaze.

“I’m Ivan, but my brothers call me Shostih.” A flash of silver in his peripheral vision catches his eye, like a fishing lure – a little earring curved like a crescent moon. Żeleński looks hastily away.

“Sixth?” Cossacks and their nicknames.

“Yeah, like that.” The boy doesn’t extend his hand to clasp, instead retreating to lean against the stable wall, oblivious to the straw catching on his blue caftan.

He doesn’t have time for this. Żeleński reaches out to unbuckle the cinch on the saddle. His hands are shaking too badly to do it, and he hates the Cossack for seeing him like this, almost as much as he hates himself.

_I wonder what I’ll do when Skrzetuski sends me away_. His fingers fumble at the leather. Would his parents take him back? The whole army already knew the prince had saved him from being shot for breaking military discipline, back in 1648. Whatever else they knew.

_I have to fight! It’s what the prince would have wanted. It’s what I owe him, for…_

Someone touches his shoulder, a tentative press of fingertips. “Hey. Hey, Żeleński, right?”

He nods.

“Here, let me help.”

Ivan takes the buckle from his numb hands, and the horse nickers. They manage it together, the Cossack stopping the strap from falling into the mare’s leg and startling her. He lifts the saddle and blankets off while Żeleński stands uselessly and passes him the curry comb.

“Thought you might like to do this part. Or I would.” He shifts from one foot to the other, and Żeleński realizes distantly the weight of such an offer, coming from a registered Cossack. (No, he reminds himself, a _rebel_.)

“Thank you,” Żeleński mumbles, ashamed.

“It’s nothing.” Ivan leans back against the wall and busies himself with brushing the road dust off his caftan’s faded burgundy fastenings. Żeleński catches him smiling a little as he lights up a pipe.

_Skrzetuszewo glows in the distance and it’s been a long day of hard work, the men at Beresteczko scythed down like wheat. Jan’s boots leave dark stains behind him in the halls as he stumbles in, and he’s so tired it’s getting hard to drag one foot in front of the other._

_There’s this nagging feeling in the back of his mind that something evil has followed him home, that it isn’t over. But he can see warm firelight seeping through the doorframe, and his sorrows have always left him in his loves’ arms before._

_He opens the heavy wooden door to their bedroom and finds himself in a familiar room, stone-walled and tapestried, a familiar figure in a fur-lined robe seated at the desk before the crackling fire._

No, no, no_ –_

_“You’re late,” Jeremi murmurs, and fear spikes in his throat like a knife._

_“This is all wrong,” Jan whispers, eyes flitting from the window to the door, finding it locked as it so often was when Jeremi was in his study and they were alone._

_The prince backhands him across the face, quick as a viper striking, and Jan stumbles, weightless, thinking: he wore his signet ring that’ll leave a mark._

_“Have you too joined the peace party?”_

_“No,” Jan gasps._

_You’re dead, he wants to say._

_No. How could the prince have ever died? Jan’s head is spinning, dizzy from the blow. He should be stronger than this. He should…_

_He finds himself blinking at bright sunlight, flat on his back on the marshy field of Beresteczko. He scrambles to tuck his clothes around himself, aching as he sits up. He doesn’t really remember what happened: only feels bruises and the jolting pulse of fear, but he’s used to that._

_Someone is screaming in the distance. A child’s crying. The smell of blood fills the air and the water._

_“My prince?” Jan says shakily._

_Blood is smeared over Jeremi’s cheek, his long hair pulled back, disheveled. He crouches in the ruined battlefield, next to someone’s body – some Cossack in a blue caftan, bleeding into the reeds. Jan can’t see the man’s face. He can’t – _

_“Skrzetuski,” Wiśniowiecki snaps. “To me.”_

_“I’m here, my prince.”_

_“Do you remember what I taught you on the bank of the Sula?”_

_Pulyan’s ribs were already broken, but he had burned on the coals for hours and hours. Jan would never forget the smell of charred flesh, the horrible moment where the burly man had finally started to scream._

_He sways._

_“Don’t,” he says. “Please don’t, my prince. I love you.”_

_Wiśniowiecki’s pale, bloodied face closes off, blank as stone. “I don’t think you do, Skrzetuski.”_

_“Please.”_

_Jeremi says nothing. There’s no change in that gaunt face, no spark of emotion. _

_He can no longer see the prince, the field, the corpses. The dark-haired Cossack. The sun is too bright, pulsing dark spots in the corner of his vision, the way it was when Chmiel’s army marched northwest and Jan was too feverish to hold a cup to his lips. Or is he at Zbaraż, in the reeds, somewhere in that blurred, half-remembered day where he’d slept fitfully during the light, held in God’s hand but despairing each time he woke to the stench of dead men rotting in the water?_

_He feels himself staggering, falling as surely as if the ground had opened up beneath him. He can feel his heart pounding, pulse racing in his veins. He has to get away – _

_The prince’s hand encircles his throat and presses down hard._

Jan wakes with a strangled cry.

Jurko’s arm falls from his waist as he jolts upright in the darkened room. He fists his hands in the sheets, struggling to breathe.

He’s used to the things that walk his dreams, and the prince is one of them – the sweet touch of his hand and the icy tower of his anger; still he doesn’t remember panic, not for himself: never had the prince been a figure of such cold, stalking dread.

_Good God, am I doomed to this forever?_ He’d striven to give his soul to Jeremi in its entirety: was it still his?

It had gotten better, before Jeremi died. The year before Beresteczko had been the happiest of his life. It still feels presumptuous, disobedient, to say it this way but: he had started to get _better._

Despite himself, tears well in Jan’s eyes. He wills them away.

_I’m not _helpless_._

Not like the women and children he’d seen in the rebellion. Not like those he had killed.

But that only brings darker thoughts: what he’d seen of the Cossack camp on the march; smiles exchanged, and money in Tuhaj-bej’s hand. Women in the villages his own men had torched, begging for their sons. Jan is no different. The mob in Czehryń howling for his blood had taught him that much. Chmiel’s magnanimity had taught him that much. The prince…

The prince is haunting him, and he’s powerless to stop it. Anything else would be a lie.

Helena curls on one side of him, and Jurko sprawls on the other, the night filled with their quiet, even breathing. Jan forces his ragged, painful breaths to the same pace. Reminds himself they’re there. They’re safe.

He wants to feel their arms lock around him again, aches for their kisses.

Helena wouldn’t mind. She’d hold him close and let him rest his head against the soft skin where her neck meets her shoulder. She always says she loves how much he trusts her.

He swallows his want.

Jan climbs out of bed, careful not to wake them, though Jurko stirs in his sleep. He just needs to be sure one more person is safe.

Helena, uncertain but meaning perhaps to please him, had once suggested Jeremi as a name for the child that would be their own, and Jan had quietly shaken his head. That had been his first disloyalty – his first step away, Jan tries to correct himself.

His young wife had smiled across at him, almost grateful for the refusal. “You always speak well of Wiśniowiecki,” she said by way of excuse, with dark eyes that knew too much.

Had seen too much, during the war: alone, because Jan had not gone to her.

Jan shivered. “He’s a great man,” he’d said automatically, the words very quiet. He was sure in Warsaw and Kraków the more militant noble houses would be full of Jeremis come next summer.

Helena nodded. She didn’t dispute it, but there was something decidedly bitter in the motion; her hand moved instinctively to cover the faint swell of her belly. “I don’t want our son to sow so much death.”

They had settled on Jarosław when the child was born in the spring, with his little hands grasping their fingers as tight and strong as the world coming alive again around them after winter.

The toddler’s swaddled in a soft blanket, resting peaceably enough in his hanging cradle. Bohun had carved the light ash wood into flowers and birds.

Jan runs his hand gently over the designs, feeling the round outline of a poppy in the dark. He fights back a sob.

He’d tried not to rock the little bed, but the child wriggles, mumbling, and his eyes squint open – Helena’s eyes, big and night-black.

Before the boy gets distressed, Jan lifts him up, blanket and all. Jareczek shifts against him, plump little arms clinging. “Tato?” says a bleary, sleepy voice.

He hugs him close, sinking to his knees with the boy still in his arms. “I’m right here, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “I’m not going anywhere. I love you, Jareczku, so so much.”

The child’s tiny stubby fingers brush over the wetness on Jan’s cheek where the tears have fallen, and Jan’s smile nearly releases the sob trapped in his throat. He kisses Jarek’s hair, inhaling the clean baby smell of him, the fragile warmth.

“Did he wake again?” Helena says softly behind him, rubbing her eyes. “I didn’t even hear.”

“I think I woke him,” Jan whispers back. Jarek’s falling asleep again already, dark head tucked against his shoulder.

“Come back to bed,” Helena says, nudging him gently. “Jurko’s stolen the covers, and I need someone to keep me warm.”

(“Was it another dream, dear heart?” she whispers, wrapping her arms around his waist, tangling their legs together. He can feel the moment Jurko wakes next to him, squinting in the low light and nestling against them.

“The prince again.” Jan swallows, the shame welling up like blood from a wound. He thinks of little Jarek. “I shouldn’t have woken him.”

“Oh, love.” He feels her lips at his throat. “He can’t hurt you,” Helena says, pulling him closer. There’s a low undercurrent to her voice, something hard and angry. Adamantine. “Not anymore.”)

At dawn, when it’s scarcely yet light out, Jan finds Żeleński outside, huddled in the chill above the dewy grass. His wavy hair is mussed, shoulders too thin beneath his heavy coat.

“I couldn’t sleep either,” Jan says carefully.

The boy twitches at the sight of him, and for a moment Jan worries he’ll bolt. He gets to his feet, a nod to military discipline; Jan tries to smile at him.

“Your grace.”

“Please sit.” Żeleński’s trembling, pale. Jan gestures to the rough-hewn bench he’d risen from, settling next to him. “I thought we could speak. Now seems as good a time as any.”

Żeleński’s back is rigidly straight. “I’ll pack right away. There isn’t much.”

No apology – Jan almost wants to laugh. _I wouldn’t have taken those words back, either. Not then._

Belatedly, he realizes he has no idea how to go about this.

“You’re welcome to stay, Żeleński, as long as you like. I like working with you.” It’s true: the boy is responsible – and, Jan thinks, kind.

It’s clear this is the last thing Żeleński expected to hear.

“But I said –!” He flushes, and his back stiffens again. In a quieter voice, almost reluctantly, he continues on a different tack: “I don’t know if I can serve under someone who flouts the prince voivode’s orders.”

Skrzetuski pauses, and Żeleński thinks _now_ he’s surely lost all the position he’d managed to save in the man’s graces. Jan looks pensive, and Żeleński wonders wildly for a moment if he’s about to hear that the famous Bohun is a spy for the Commonwealth or something equally unbelievable, something that would make the world make sense again and bring the quiet, handsome lord beside him back into the white. Perhaps Żeleński had judged too quickly. That must be it.

“Maybe we should speak of the prince voivode,” Skrzetuski says at last.

Żeleński shakes, filled with the memory of yesterday’s rage: a pale shadow of it, but enough to make his eyes flash and his hands clench in his lap.

“I wouldn’t dare to give my opinion of such a great man,” he whispers, the humble words fraught with tension, low in his throat.

Skrzetuski smiles a little wryly. “You did yesterday.”

Żeleński blinks.

“Only in his defense!” _How can he not understand?_ Żeleński knows his face is flushed, feels shamed tears spark in his eyes. “He was kind to me! I owe him – I owe him everything I am. You – Your grace doesn’t know what I did, before he raised me up, I deserved to die, I –”

There’s such pain in the colonel’s kind eyes that for a moment Żeleński’s breath is stolen away. “What do you owe him? Your life, because you spared a dying man some pain?”

Żeleński gapes at him, and Skrzetuski lays a hand on his shoulder, tentatively, as if he isn’t sure he ought.

“You did the right thing,” he says. “You don’t owe him anything.”

Finally, Żeleński finds his voice.

“You knew.”

That boyish grin resurges, just a little. “Of course I knew. Everyone in the army knew. Just how I’m sure you knew of my – of Halszka.”

Żeleński nods, not really comprehending. “You knew and you still…”

“Of course I’d take you on!”

“You didn’t think –” Żeleński swallows the words. “You didn’t think I was a liability?”

Skrzetuski closes his eyes.

“A kind heart isn’t a liability,” he says at last. The young man has none of the prince’s stark, sweeping conviction, Żeleński thinks: he says it as if he’s trying to believe it himself.

He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he stays quiet, and the words spool out of Skrzetuski like a delicate thread.

“He – Prince Wiśniowiecki told me that, when I was fourteen. Those very words: _your soft heart is a weakness. If you act on it again, it will become a liability._ I didn’t want my friends to die because I’d helped a prisoner escape a painful death. A death he deserved. The way he said it, it made so much sense.” Skrzetuski sighs heavily. “That same day he took me into his personal service. He pressed a gold coin into my hand and told me I would never disobey him again.”

Żeleński feels cold.

He could never forget it, he thinks dizzily.

The prince’s warm hand closing on his shoulder. Smiling. Divine mercy in that moment: Żeleński didn’t think the prince had ever smiled at him so tenderly again, not even when they kissed. _Oh, you will see so much of their deeds that at a sight like this pity will fly from you like an angel._

“Are you alright?” Skrzetuski’s voice. Though the sun hasn’t risen, the gray sky lightens slowly around them; fog still lingers close to the ground.

Żeleński nods purely on instinct. Skrzetuski swears quietly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to call it up.”

“No, I –” Bewildered, Żeleński thinks of Bohun’s hand on the colonel’s back. He thinks of Pani Skrzetuska. “It must’ve been easier for you,” he says, the words stumbling out. “For your grace. It’s – you see, I’ve never loved –” he’s sure he’s blushing – “I’ve never wanted… the love of any but other men.” Has he said it before? He doesn’t think he’s ever spoken it aloud; now it hangs there in the chill air to rebuke him.

Something – _recognition? horror? _– flashes in Skrzetuski’s gaze, and Żeleński quickly ducks his head. What possessed him to say it? Traitor or not, he can’t bear to see the disgust on this man’s face.

_Not his_.

He’d hoped, somehow, that he might understand.

Jan takes his hand, and Żeleński dares to look up.

“I’ve known a few men who are like you.” His autumn eyes are so soft Żeleński could drown in them. “Some end up happy.”

“Like me?” Żeleński stares. “In the army?? The _prince’s_ army?”

Jan grins, for once looking his years. “I – yeah, in the army.”

“But he was so strict. And Father Muchowiecki…” Żeleński falls silent, unable to recount his terrified, teenage confessions and the cold responses they provoked.

_You have said “Thy will be done.”_

Those had stopped when the prince took what was his. Jeremi always made it clear that no one else could know. _Yes, not even the priest. There’s no sin in service, Żeleński._

A weight had fallen from his shoulders then. He could remain so liberated, if only the prince stayed the focus of his heart, the calm eye of the storm that was his thoughts.

Żeleński hadn’t allowed himself to think of anyone else.

“He always said that I was selfish.” Jan’s voice pulls him out of himself. “The prince liked to say it too. When I looked at other men, when I looked at the women they walked with, I told myself, _Selfish_.”

Something in the words quiets Żeleński’s soul, forces him to bear witness. Jan’s eyes are shaded by his lashes, his dark head bowed.

_He’s like me. The hero of Zbaraż. _

“Not that that stopped me.” He smiles, but it’s a bitter thing. “Before I met Halszka, the prince used to tell me I should marry, settle.”

“He told me the same,” Żeleński offers tentatively.

This time the smile is for him. It fades quickly, like the distant flash of summer lightning, leaving Skrzetuski’s lean face as grave as ever. Jan swallows, lashes flickering. “I’ve wondered – do you think he wanted it just so that no one would think anything of it, when he sent for us?”

It takes a moment for the implications to hit him.

_“Jan Skrzetuski may have been a husaria lieutenant in ‘48 and no mere aide, but he knew his duty,” the prince had snapped, pacing restlessly in his tent, maps spread out on the makeshift table. Żeleński stood very still at attention, awaiting his pleasure. “He knew that service came before anything else: that to serve was an honor higher than any shallow words of love.”_

_Each soldier knew how the officer had given up even the last thought of his beloved fiancée, during the rebellion. Żeleński bowed his head._

_The prince stopped in front of him, lifting Żeleński’s chin with a grip that made his heartbeat flutter anxiously. “What we share is greater than love, Żeleński. The words I choose to give and accept are pleasantries, gifts, nothing more. Meaningless. What matters is what we say in silence.” He had paused, stroking Żeleński’s cheek; the boy curved desperately into the touch. “Skrzetuski understood this, when he made his sacrifices.”_

The prince never spoke of another of his soldiers quite the way he spoke of his former favorite. It was Żeleński’s job to know the prince’s every whim, every detail of his expression, and of course he noticed. He might even have hoped Skrzetuski was – like him. No, he _had_ hoped: Jan’s name had sanctified the already holy bond between himself and his liege. If it was love, the love reserved for men and women, he could have selfishly wished to have the prince as his own; but there was nothing wrong with service – Żeleński repeated it like the rosary.

He’d hoped, so why does the thought of it break his heart?

Jan’s eyes are so kind.

And now –

_Just so that no one would think anything of it, when he sent for us._

Żeleński’s soul recoils from the thought – a traitor’s slander, to imagine the prince could be so selfish – but there’s something so hesitant, so new and vulnerable, about the question, that he can’t bring himself to cut it off. Unbidden, the image of Jan kneeling at the prince’s deathbed returns to him, a revenant spirit: he’d stayed in that room for hours as the shadows lengthened and darkness fell around him. The drawn look he’d had for weeks after.

_Like you were his widow._

And now this.

He should deny it. He should deny all of it.

_They would not understand,_ Jeremi had said, with the precise, unusual tenderness that Żeleński had come to treasure. Żeleński had known all too well, then, that what he said was true. He’d remembered the priest’s words. _This stays between us._

Jan’s gaze is on him, quiet and dark.

_Just so that no one would think anything of it._

“It could be,” Żeleński whispers. It’s all he can bring himself to say.

Jan nods, a hasty motion. He swallows again and summons a smile. “He knew I was… with others. He never told me to stop. I would’ve, if he had.”

“I know,” Żeleński says softly. The prince had a way of speaking truth into existence. His few words shaped the world.

Skrzetuski exhales, and his hunched shoulders rise and fall. “When he was angry, he’d… let me know he knew.”

The image flickers before Żeleński’s eyes: the prince, his hands curled into Żeleński’s shoulders, shaking him hard enough that his teeth rattled. It’s enough to make him flinch. _Who else is there?_

_No one. No one’s touched me, your highness! I swear!_

_Remember, with someone else, with no purpose, it’s wrong. A sin. Do you remember, Żeleński? Tell me you remember._

“But he didn’t tell me to stop. He said he knew it was different, with him.” Jan’s quiet voice is a stone in a river, smoothed and dulled by pain. “He was right. It was. I was his own.”

Żeleński can’t suppress a shudder. He knows those words.

He knows those words, and it seems unbearable, somehow, that someone else should have heard them. He knows all too well how the prince would have placed one pale hand on Jan’s shoulder or Jan’s cheek to call him his, and he knows how Jan’s brave hero’s heart would have quailed hearing it.

_I was the same._ He can’t bring himself to say it.

Not yet.

“But you met Halszka.”

The tension leaves Jan’s form almost at once. He smiles.

“She swept me off my feet.”

Jan’s never spoken these words to anyone. His loves had listened – he was used to seeing anger building in their faces. The story only ever emerged in bits and pieces, as whispered confessions, an explanation after a moment where he couldn’t breathe.

_I’m well,_ he’d gasp._ It’s nothing. _And then, ashamed:_ Sometimes the prince would…_

Helena would get a cold, closed look sometimes that scared him before he understood it was not meant for him. Bohun couldn’t disguise his responses. They both knew what it meant to be powerless, more completely than Jan did.

Żeleński – _Christ, this poor boy – _watches him with understanding in those dew-green eyes, and something expectant like hope. He looks so tired, so pale and young. He looks like Jan’s spread out the entrails of his own heart before them in the grass.

_He’s nineteen now,_ Jan registers distantly. _I was younger, when the prince first took me to bed. _And for one moment he thinks he understands Bohun’s horror, the kind of terrified fury that breaks glass and overturns tables.

He has to finish this.

“I loved them both, the way… the way I love two now. I loved Jurko already then, too, though I didn’t know it. There was space in my heart for all of them.” He takes a shaking breath, trying to hold back the sob choking his throat. “But I couldn’t think of Helena. I couldn’t think of myself. I couldn’t, lest I fall to despair. All I wanted that year was to die in service. I imagined almost every night how good it would feel. That was my whole world: the prince, and dreaming of… not being here. It felt so good to please him. He took me out of myself. You – maybe you understand? I was nothing when I was with him. The days he didn’t send for me, I starved, though I took no other lover.”

Żeleński flinches a little. “But God rewarded your suffering,” he says, leaning in a little desperately, in the same tone as _But you met Halszka._ It was the ending of the story, when the king blessed him, when Zagłoba recounted the events at Zbaraż.

_Look at him,_ the story says. _The model soldier. Be the same and sure of your duty, when you leave your lovers and children behind._

Jan wishes he could lie to him.

“Did he?” he whispers. “I don’t know. I don’t know, Żeleński. What we did in those years – I don’t know if God can reward us for it.” The boy’s eyes flicker downwards. His Adam’s apple bobs, and Jan can see the moment he decides to keep his silence. Jan reaches for his hand. “But I was lucky. I was so, so lucky, because when I had given up my love and myself, when my only selfish hope was death, both were returned to me, and I hardly knew what to do, I was so happy.”

Żeleński looks up at him. “Are you happy now?”

“Yes,” Jan finds himself saying. “I am.”

“Truly?” The boy’s voice is barely above a whisper.

Jan presses his hand. “Truly. It’s like an old wound. One that pains me sometimes, and his – the prince’s death broke it open again, but I have them. I’m happy.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Żeleński says quietly, and Jan smiles at him.

“If you still want to leave, I’ll help you as much as I can.” There’s some kind of bitter irony in the fact that the two of them have stumbled together. Jeremi would undoubtedly find the words to describe it, but Jan isn’t that cruel. “But I can’t deny I hope you’ll choose to stay in my service, and go on to find some joy there.”

Żeleński nods. Is it Jan’s imagination, or does the boy blush a little? “I understand, your grace. And I’m sorry.”

Jan’s brow creases. He thought he’d already forgiven Żeleński’s outburst: worries, given the way the boy’s looking down, as if he might weep. “Don’t –”

Żeleński’s voice is very soft, a faint grey shadow. “I’m sorry he… I’m sorry he hurt you.”

Jan can pinpoint the moment his heart breaks. It fractures like spring ice, too thin to support the silver weight at the surface.

He hadn’t known such kind words could shatter him this way. Hadn’t known he needed this.

_It’s not your fault_. He wants to tell him that no one should ever have hurt him, either. That the prince was wrong. But Żeleński hasn’t admitted to any of those things. The knowledge is spidersilk fragile in the air between them. Jan sighs slowly. “I’m sorry, too. It means more than I can say, to hear you say that.”

Jurko’s waiting for him. Jan smiles to see the famous ataman standing in the doorframe, like a wife expecting her husband home from the fields.

He barely makes it past the threshold when Bohun’s catching him by the waist and pulling him down into a kiss, one hand tangled in Jan’s shirt, tugging him closer.

“Someone could see us,” Jan says, breathless and delighted. Drawn in from the lightening world outside, the dusty wooden alcove of the hallway makes for a dark closeness that comforts him.

And Jurko isn’t ashamed of him. Would never insist Jan keep his eyes averted and not, never speak his heart when they stand together in public. Would never wield stainless reputation and his own immunity to dishonor as two blades.

Bohun growls a little, as if he can tell Jan’s thoughts have wandered. He tilts his face up towards Jan’s, tugging him closer. “I don’t care.”

Jan grins at the expected response. He’s all but melting against him, letting Bohun hold him up. _It’s early still,_ he thinks._ Let’s go back to bed and wake Halszka, and we can curl up together. I’ve had months to think of what to do with both of you here._ Bohun’s arms are warm against his back, solid. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Bohun studies him, beautiful eyes nearly obscured by their lashes. “Are you – are you well, shchastya moye?”

“I will be.” Jan’s startled to feel tears well in his eyes. He blinks them away. _My happiness._ “I swear, I will be.”

“Żeleński? Hey!”

It takes him a moment to place the strange voice. It’s the boy from yesterday, his earring catching the rosy light of sunrise. Żeleński still feels dizzy, feels himself shrink back.

“What is it?”

Ivan leans to one side, dark forelock falling into his eyes for a moment. “If I keep bothering you, do I get to find out your first name?”

“Maybe,” Żeleński says, smiling back on instinct. It hadn’t occurred to him once that the Cossack could actually be seeking him out.

“I – They’re getting breakfast ready. Thought you should know.” Hands moving nervously, Ivan strokes the beginnings of a mustache with his thumb. “You’ve been out here a while.”

He shrugs, feeling his shoulders tense up again. “Had some things to think about.”

Ivan nods. “The colonel just came back to the house.” He glances over sharply, and his eyes light. “Are you in trouble?”

“No!” Żeleński’s face is hot. He jumps to his feet.

“You seem like the quiet type,” the Cossack says, barreling ahead, “sweet. I don’t see what he could have to blame you for.”

Did Ivan just call him _sweet_?

Żeleński, dazed, can’t think of a single thing to say. “I…”

The flash of white teeth. “Unless you just hide all your wild secrets behind that pretty face.”

Żeleński inhales sharply, staring at him with wide green eyes. The cocky grin still lingers on Ivan’s young face, but after a moment he won’t meet Żeleński’s eyes, like he can’t manage to look directly at him.

The thought is unbidden:_ I stood by and watched as thousands of boys like you died screaming. I stood at the prince’s shoulder – _

“I should go,” he says quickly.

It’s just a joke, he tells himself, trying to calm his skipping heart. His hands are curled tight in the pockets of his kontusz. A friendly joke at the lach’s expense, nothing else.

“Wait!”

He turns back, confused, and Ivan says, to his complete bewilderment:

“If you’re in trouble with your colonel, I bet you could come with us. In the spring.” The Cossack’s breathing is still ragged from rushing after him through the grass. “The ataman likes me; I’d talk to him. He’d look out for you.”

Oh_. Oh – _

Żeleński is staring again. “I won’t – I can’t just _desert_.” He feels like he should be angry, but at the same time – at the same time anger couldn’t be further from what he feels now.

Ivan shifts, uncertain, and beams at him again. “It was worth a try. You’re really alright?”

_He would_ want _me there? Me?_

Joy dawns on him slowly, but he feels its presence, warm and weightless as sunlight. Whatever Ivan sees in his face, he gets a strange look in his eyes: foreign but… not unwelcome. Almost soft.

“Cossacks,” Żeleński says, smiling. He ducks his head. “I’m not in trouble, but I’ll be here all winter and I know no one else in these parts but the colonel. When you take the road in spring you’ll already be longing for me to go away.” It’s only when he finishes talking that he realizes he’s said he’ll stay, despite not giving Jan Skrzetuski an answer.

That sparks a grin. Żeleński didn’t know he could be so anxiously proud to provoke a smile from someone like this, of low birth and no great significance. Ivan rocks back on his feet, cocking his head to the side. “Oh, I don’t know.”

**Author's Note:**

> intro is a quote from Curtin's translation, and the "What would I do without you?" piece is stolen in parts from tuulikki's beautiful phrasing! Ivan is sort of based on Cossack #6 (as you see), our affectionate name for that one cute Cossack in Bohun's regiment in the movie (you know the one?)
> 
> Rejecting canon and naming Jan/Helena's eldest child Jarosław was sparklingdali's idea and remains a great source of joy.
> 
> Many languages were abused in the making of this fic; please let me know if you can save them


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